1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the storage and dispensing of cartridges for firearms and more particularly to a cartridge rapid transfer scheme as might be employed in the loading of cartridges into a relatively large capacity firearm magazine such as the magazine of a fully automatic firearm or so-called machine gun.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Most of the modern smaller firearms are of the breach loading variety where a cartridge is positioned at one end of and in alignment with the firearm barrel and a hammer or striker released as, for example, by pulling the trigger to strike a primer arrangement in the cartridge case base, igniting that primer and the explosive charge within the cartridge case expelling a bullet through the barrel toward a target. Upon firing such a bullet, the empty cartridge case is extracted or otherwise moved away from the barrel and a live round or fresh cartridge positioned for a subsequent shot. Such firearms may be categorized as having a manual, semiautomatic or fully automatic mode of operation. A modern bolt action rifle or revolver typifies the manual mode of operation wherein the user must not only pull the trigger to expel a bullet, but must also manipulate some further mechanism to align an unfired round with the barrel and to re-cock the hammer or primer striking mechanism prior to firing a second round. Easier and more rapid firing may be achieved with a semi-automatic mode of operation wherein either the recoil on the cartridge case or the expanding gases in the barrel are used to actuate a mechanism which expels the empty cartridge case and repositions the next cartridge for firing while re-cocking the hammer or striker mechanism. All the user need do is release the trigger and repull the trigger to fire the subsequent round. Such arrangements are commonplace in small caliber handguns, shotguns and some rifles. Even more rapid firing rates as are desirable, for example in military and related situations, may be achieved by a so-called fully automatic mode of operation wherein the recoil or expanding gases created by the discharge of one round not only expels the spent cartridge, replacing it with a new cartridge and re-cocking the firing mechanism as in the semi-automatic case, but also re-releases the firing mechanism, i.e., hammer or firing pin, discharging the subsequent cartridge so that all the user need do is hold the trigger in the pulled position and the firearm continues discharging rounds as rapidly as the mechanism inertia allows. Clearly with the high firing rate of such fully-automatic weapons, a large number of cartridges are consumed in a relatively short time and with such arrangements the firing rate is limited in one sense by the rate at which the user can reload the firearm magazine with new cartridges. One solution to this problem is, of course, to provide the user with several readily removable magazines, each already full of cartridges so that removal and replacement of the magazine effects reloading. With large, relatively complex magazine structures, this approach is not entirely satisfactory.
Numerous magazine reloading schemes have been devised including cartridge base or cartridge case gripping clips for holding a column of cartridges for insertion into a firearm magazine, however, such clips and containers are generally limited by their physical size and, particularly, length, to something on the order of thirty rounds or less. For larger capacity magazines, for example of the rotating drum type for containing an annular array of cartridges, no completely satisfactory scheme has been developed.
Illustrative of such rotating drum-type magazines is the magazine illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,969,980. The machine gun therein described is commercially available in a form chambered for a conventional 0.22 caliber rim fire cartridge. The commercial version of this patent has a spring loaded, rotating drum-type magazine which holds 177 cartridges in its annular array of cartridge-accepting locations with each location receiving two or three cartridges. Each cartridge is inserted in turn by hand in loading the magazine of this illustrative patent, and a considerable length of time is required to load the magazine.
Prior art may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 211,691; 1,192,723; 2,191,130; 2,436,154; 2,659,173; 3,757,449; 3,854,232; 3,916,552; 3,969,980 and 4,034,644.